READING COMPREHENSION 03

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate
the correct answer to each of the following questions.
The work of women has been economically vital since prehistory, although their contributions have
varied according to the structure, needs, customs, and attitudes of society.

In prehistoric times, women and men participated almost equally in hunting and gathering activities to
obtain food. With the development of agricultural communities, women’s work revolved more around
the home. As urban centres developed, women sold or traded goods in the marketplace.

From ancient to modern times, four generalizations can be made about women's paid work. Women
have worked because of economic necessity; poor women in particular worked outside the home
whether they were unmarried or married, and especially if their husbands were unable to sustain the
family solely through their own work. Women’s indentured work has often been similar to their work
at home. Women have maintained the primary responsibility for raising children, regardless of their
paid work. Women have historically been paid less than men and have been allocated lower-status
work

Some major changes are now occurring in industrial nations, including the steadily increasing
proportion of women in the labor force; decreasing family responsibilities (due to both smaller family
size and technological innovation in the home); higher levels of education for women; and more middle
and upper-income women working for pay or for job satisfaction. Statistically, they have not yet
achieved parity of pay or senior appointments in the workplace in any nation.

Artisans working in their own homes not infrequently used the labor of their families. This custom was
so prevalent during the Middle Ages, craft guilds of the period, including some that otherwise excluded
women, often admitted to membership the widows of guild members, providing they met professional
requirements. Dressmaking and lacemaking guilds were composed exclusively of women.

Gradually, the guilds were replaced by the putting-out system, whereby tools and materials were
distributed to workers by merchants; the workers then produced articles on a piecework basis in their
homes. During the 18th and early 19th centuries, as the Industrial Revolution developed, the putting-
out system slowly declined. Goods that had been produced by hand in the home were manufactured
by machine under the factory system. Women competed more with men for some jobs, but were
concentrated primarily in textile mills and clothing factories. Manufacturers often favored women
employees because of relevant skills and lower wages, and also because early trade union organization
tended to occur first among men.

Employees in sweatshops were also preponderantly women. The result was to institutionalize systems
of low pay, poor working conditions, long hours, and other abuses, which along with child labor
presented some of the worst examples of worker exploitation in early industrial capitalism. Minimum
wage legislation and other protective laws, when introduced, concentrated particularly on the
alleviation of these abuses of working women.

Women workers in business and the professions, the so-called white-collar occupations, suffered less
from poor conditions of work and exploitative labor, but were denied equality of pay and opportunity.
The growing use of the typewriter and the telephone after the 1870s created two new employment
niches for women, as typists and telephonists, but in both fields the result was again to institutionalize
a permanent category of low-paid, low-status women’s work.
Question 1: When the farming communities developed, women worked _____
A. less at home
B. more at home
C. in groups
D. more outside
Question 2: The word "sweatshops" suggests_____
A. hard work
B. harmful work
C. factory work
D. workshop
Question 3: With better education and less family burden, women_____.
A. have become more influential in their companies
B. have not yet achieved high status in the workplace
C. have enjoyed equal status in the workplace
D. have been respected at home and in the workplace
Question 4: The word "indentured" in this context may mostly means_____.
A. in the kitchen
B. inside the home
C. outside the kitchen
D. outside the home
Question 5: Under the "putting-out system", the workers_____.
A. provide their factories with raw materials
B. bought materials to manufacture goods
C. turn their homes into factories
D. are provided with tools to produce goods at home
Question 6: Manufacturers tended to employ women because_____.
A. they did not have to pay for high insurance
B. they could cheat them more easily
C. they did not have to pay high wages
D. women demanded less than men
Question 7: Although women cannot avoid the task of bringing up children, _____.
A. they can be breadwinners as men
B. they have to work to feed their men
C. are the mainstay of their families
D. they have to amuse their men
Question 8: What women have done for the economic development have changed over time due
to_____.
A. their role in the home
B. the different factors of the society
C. the Industrial Revolution
D. their marital status and their husbands

Answer sheet:

Question Answer

1. B
2. A
3. B
4. D
5. D
6. C
7. A
8. B